22

Alex …

He heard the voice entering his head all of a sudden, as the clock on the classroom wall showed the time was four minutes to one. The last period was almost over. Jenny’s voice was so clear and immediate, so close …

I hear you. I’m here, Jenny. I’m here!

I’m shaking all over …

Where are you?

In Milan. I just left the airport a little while ago, I took a train that’ll take me to the city centre.

I know the one. It’s a line that connects with the metro. You’ll get to Cadorna station. Get off there. I’ll be waiting for you. I get out of school in a few minutes, and I’ll come to meet you.

Will we recognise each other?

I’m sure we will.

As they communicated in thought, Alex went on staring at the clock. The teacher turned to look at him every so often, frowning as she noticed his complete lack of attention. But the Alex in that dimension had an A– average in philosophy. She could allow him one day of slacking off. He must be in love, thought his teacher. She wasn’t far off the mark.

As soon as he got out of the building, Alex broke into a run. He ran without stopping until he reached the Loreto metro station. He boarded the first carriage on a green-line train. On the train, his thoughts were tangled in confusion. He was about to meet the girl who had lived in his thoughts for as far back as he could remember.

During the metro ride, something strange happened.

There was a curly-haired guy leaning against the door of the carriage, with an Isaac Asimov book in his hands. When he looked up, he gave Alex a fierce, hostile look for no apparent reason. People in this world are still the same: they glare at each other for no good reason, he mused. After that, out of nowhere, he found himself imagining the book falling out of the guy’s hands. A couple of seconds later, the guy actually did drop his novel on the floor. Then he shook his head, astonished at what he’d done, bent over to pick it up, and, with a quizzical look, went back to reading.

Alex got off the metro at Cadorna and took the escalator upstairs to the main station. Gripping the rubber handrail as he rode up, he noticed that two girls standing ahead of him were having a spirited argument about a fairly meaningless topic: which club to go to that Saturday night. Alex shut his eyes and imagined the two girls embracing. A moment later, the two girls turned, wrapped their arms around each other and then, abruptly, moved away from one another.

Alex heard one of the girls ask: ‘Why did you do that?’

The other girl shrugged her shoulders, with a look that told her friend she had no idea what had just happened.

Did that really happen or did I just think it? Alex asked himself. He couldn’t figure out whether what was going on around him was real, or might instead be nothing more than something reconstructed by his mind, a false memory of something that had never actually taken place.

When he found himself looking up at the LCD signboards that indicated the arriving and departing trains, his heart began to pound in his chest. The train from Malpensa was scheduled for 1.30 p.m. That was only ten minutes away.

Alex headed for the platform. Everything around him seemed quite similar to the reality from which he had just come. The station was pretty crowded, with dozens and dozens of people moving at the frantic pace of the city.

Suddenly a man in his mid fifties, who was shoving his way through the crowd, tripped and slammed into Alex, only to continue on his way without so much as a word of apology. A few seconds after that, Alex instinctively shut his eyes and saw the same man inviting a prostitute into his car, paying her, and watching as she unzipped his pants. Alex did his best to expel that vision immediately from his mind.

‘What on earth is happening?!’ he exclaimed as his eyes followed the man. His mind was playing nasty tricks on him, and he was no longer able to distinguish between imagination and reality.

A glance at the station clock told him that the train would be pulling up in no more than a minute or two.

Sitting by the window, Jenny looked at her mobile phone, which she had turned off as a precaution, and thought about her mother. She must be horribly worried about her. She was reminded of her mother’s theories about the spiritual plane of life; about the plans of destiny, which left no room for mere coincidence. There was a higher reason behind every chance encounter, her mother often said, especially the ones that might seem to be mere strokes of luck. All the same, Jenny was pretty sure that her mother’s beliefs wouldn’t be taken into consideration as extenuating circumstances the minute she found out that her daughter had run away to Italy.

Jenny turned to the seats on her left and saw a woman slap a little boy. The woman appeared to be furious at the child.

‘Don’t you dare start crying!’ she shrieked into his face.

Jenny exchanged a glance with the little boy, who had twisted his head to the right, and his eyes met hers.

‘Mamma, who was that lady with Papà yesterday?’

‘Who are you talking about?’

‘When you were at work … Papà took me to the soccer field and then he left with a blond lady. I even saw them kissing. Who is she?’

‘What are you talking about? Don’t make up stories! And now shut up and finish your dinner.’

Jenny shook her head and rubbed her eyes as a shudder ran through her, paralysing her.

‘What …’ she started to say aloud, and then caught herself in time.

This hadn’t been a fantasy or an odd thought. She’d seen it. That scene had really taken place: she could feel it, she was sure of it. As if that boy had wanted to show her something.

What the hell is happening to me?

The metallic voice of the train’s loudspeaker announced, first in Italian and then in English, that they were about to pull in to Cadorna station.

Her emotions were rising at a dizzying rate. It wasn’t even comparable to what she had felt on Altona Pier, when a thousand doubts were still crowding her mind. Now she was much closer, closer than she’d ever been before. The meeting that she’d been anticipating for the last four years.

Or maybe she’d been waiting for this moment all her life.